The big event of the month was the dedication of the new Hudson River
Way on August 10th. The River Way is a pedestrian overpass
from downtown to enable pedestrians to walk over the highway and access the
riverfront. The overpass is beautifully designed and the surrounding
riverfront has been freshly landscaped to make it attractive to visitors.
It will bring a lot more foot traffic to the river. Hopefully this will mean
more visitors for the SLATER.

The dedication included bands, speakers, fireworks and at dusk, a lighted
boat parade from the Albany yacht club. Participating in the regatta,
for the first time, was our very own USS SLATER 26' motor whaleboat with our
very own BM2 Beth Spain at the tiller. The whaleboat is now fully
functional, and Beth, Roy, and Rocky baby it like a yacht. It is the
pride of the SLATER. We keep it moored diagonally and access it from the
Jacobs ladder on the fantail. Beth has gotten permission from the Coast
Guard to carry up to six paying passengers. We thought this would be a nice
touch for reunions, but again, insurance is the problem. The liability
insurance would cost twenty five hundred dollars for the rest of the season,
again, a little steep for our blood. The floating highlight of the show
was the return visit of the fireboat JOHN J HARVEY. For a second year,
Huntley Gill, Tim Ivory and her volunteer crew of this veteran warrior
motored up the Hudson and lay alongside us for a weekend. This year's visit
was especially significant. As you may recall, on September 11, 2001, right
after the World Trade Center disaster, the volunteers of the HARVEY
volunteered their help and services to the New York City Fire Department.
The NYFD immediately accepted the services of the aging boat that they had
discarded years before, and should have long ago been scrapped. The HARVEY
spent three days tied up at the Battery, pumping river water to the
firefighters ashore battling flames at ground zero. It was a heroic feat
and a major contribution. I think all of us who care for historic ships
would love to have the opportunity to be of such service again.

As a salute to the HARVEY's commitment, the Albany Fire Department
planned a special tribute of their own. As the HARVEY approached Albany,
the Albany Fire Department closed the south lane of the Dunn Memorial Bridge
over the Hudson just ahead of SLATER's berth. They lined the bridge with fire
trucks and sprayed water down in salute of the HARVEY's service. HARVEY
fired up her nozzles in return, and it was no contest. She soaked the
firefighters on the bridge. In fact, it looked like she could have knocked
the trucks off the bridge. One unnamed SALTER engineer was so awed by
HARVEY's pumping capability that he remarked, "That's better than
sex!" Only an engineer would make that comment. Others remarked that
they should hire out to clean the undersides of bridges, her hydrants were
that powerful. All the local media outlets covered the event. Following the
salute, the HARVEY lay alongside the SLATER and took on visitors for an
afternoon cruise to Troy. She departed at 1400 on Friday, and was back for
1600.

That evening the HARVEY crew put on a wonderful steak and seafood
barbecue for the SLATER volunteers. We had a great get together that
lasted late into the evening. The best part is that the HARVEY crew is
allowed to have beer aboard, so it's always tough to keep some of our old
timers from jumping ship. Jerry Jones and the Andrians made
a special presentation to the HARVEY crew, as a little tribute from the
SLATER. Back on September first, 2001, ten days before the World Trade
Center disaster, Jerry and his wife had left New York harbor on a
cruise ship. The HARVEY had come out to send them off with a water display,
and Jerry had some beautiful images of the old boat with the Twin Towers in
the background. Richard Andrian worked with Jerry to make large prints. They
were put into an album that the whole SLATER crew signed. We are indebted to
the HARVEY crew for a wonderful evening and some delicious steaks. The only
ones who had any complaints were the usual ten percent who failed to get the
word. Things must be pretty rough on the HARVEY accommodation wise, because
we opened the SLATER's aft crew's quarters to the HARVEY volunteers for
berthing, as well as the use of the showers. The following morning
they were talking about the SLATER Hilton. Early on, painter and computer
guru Erik Collin recognized the value of the HARVEY as a paint float.
He mixed up some hull paint and spent the day touching up the rust streaks on
the starboard side.

We had Walt Roberge and the USS SWEARER crew back aboard this month.
This is their second time to Albany, and they were real impressed with our
progress. One of their former skippers, Ken Hannan, was the guest of
honor. The day before the reunion, he appeared at the office door aboard the
ship. I invited him in to sit down so he could tell me tales of the SWEARER,
and even more impressive, his days skippering a corvette, USS TENACITY, back
in the dark days of 1942 when we weren't sure who was going to win. During
the course of the conversation, it came out that he had strolled down from
the Ramada Inn. Not a bad walk, about a half-mile, in ninety-four degree
heat. But then it came outKen is ninety-two years old. To me
that was more impressive than his combat record. We had a nice presentation
that Friday of a painting of the SWEARER at Okinawa for the SLATER museum.
SWEARER stayed on the picket lines for the entire campaign, never getting a
break for R&R. That was a tough detail. For the record, Ken
refused several offers to be driven back to the hotel, choosing to walk.

Among the crew were Don and Ruthie Martin. They stayed on after the reunion
to help out in the gift shop and with painting the SLATER. This was their
third such visit, and they are workers. We turned Don loose with a power
sprayer, and he sprayed out the entire 01 lever 20 and 40-millimeter guns,
tubs, and the whole starboard deckhouse. He was amazing. I kind of found out
a little about the price of my integrity from Don and Ruthie. My policy and
the policy of the Board is to display the SLATER in as near as we can to
original 1945 configuration. Thus, the policy in regard to donor recognition
is to recognize our major donors off the ship leaving the ship with as few
alterations as possible and minimal signage. Our plan for major donor
recognition is to have a board in the visitors center that will contain the
names of all individuals who donate $2,000 or more and businesses that donate
$5,000 or more. That's one of the reasons the completion of the trailer is
so important to us, as that will be where we recognize our contributors.
Then Don and Ruthie came along. Don had a little brass tag that he wanted to
hang on his bunk. Actually, it's not really his bunk. His bunk disappeared
when they scrapped the USS SWEARER, but you know what we mean. In her final
role, SLATER is every DE to every DE sailor. It broke our hearts to say no,
that he couldn't put the tag on the bunk, as all the donor recognition will
be done in the visitor center. Anyway, Don and Ruthie still gave us a $5,000
check to the endowment fund, and worked the two weeks to boot!

Work continues as before. The trailer has completed phase one.
"Doc" Miner kept his promise and with helpersDennis Nagi,
Bill Coyle,Jim Fowler, and Paul Clow, completed the
exterior and the interior carpentry. We are indebted to Crawford Door and
Window, Allerdice Building Supply and Curtiss Lumber of
Ballston Spa for their contribution of donated building materials to the
trailer project. The next phase is building the handicapped access ramp, the
deck leading to the ship and fabricating a new gangway. Board member Tom
Owens has arranged for Home Depot to donate five thousand dollar
worth of building materials for the deck, so we hope to begin construction
within the next couple of months. We thank all of you who spent so many hot
days in that trailer.

The gunners have finished all their repair work on gun 1, and
repainted the mount and shield. Peter Schick did the shield. Dave Floyd,
Andy Desorbo, Frank Beeler, and Bob Lawrence were heavily engaged in the
process of trying to free gun three in train. They are using a lot of
penetrating oil and elbow grease. Anyway, it took those guys just two weeks
of oiling, greasing, grunting and groaning, but they managed to break the gun
free for the first time since the SLATER left Souda Bay. You can imagine
what a moment that was; especially when you remember that the youngest guy in
the crew is 77. Doug Tanner is in the process of repairing broken
teeth on two helical gears in the train drive on mount three. He is building
up the teeth with weld and hand filing them into shape. We won't get into
how the teeth got broken. We only talk about happy things here. The
appropriate cliché here is, "We'll never make that mistake
again!" Up above them, they pushed Rich Pavlovik off of the
three-inch gun, so he moved on to 40mm gun 43 and is reworking that mount.
Up above him, Ed Whitbeck and Peter Jez are scaling and
painting the directors.

The painters have made their seasonal turn around. It's always a
shame that just about the time the tourist season is two-thirds over this
ship really starts to look great. The hull has been touched up, both
breakwaters repainted, and all the decks have been redone. Ed Whitbeck,
Dick Smith, and Earl Gillette have been chipping away on the 01 level
aft. Smitty, Ed and Earl have been working on the 40mm mounts and
gun tubs. Chris Fedden has and been working up the main deck on the
starboard side. Buzz Surwilo made his annual pilgrimage and painted
out the insides of the flag bags. We turned DonMartin loose
with Gene Cellini with a spray painter and we've all ready mentioned
his accomplishments.

Most of these days the ship runs about ninety-five degrees in the
office when the sun beats down on the steel. If you don't have a fan
directly on you, you sweat all over the paper work. Aw shucks. You all
remember how it was. Any way, working in the heat, Beth was awful surprised
when she opened one last donation to the Winter Fund. It came in
from Fred Schonenberg who heads the Uncle Sam Chorus here in
Troy. This is living proof that while we all procrastinate, there are still
some souls out there who make good on their intentions. Fred, we thank you.

You might think it would be impossible to top all that we've told you
so far, but there is even more. The most amazing event of the month,
and probably the whole year. On Sunday, August 11, Doug Tanner returned the
repaired fantail hatch and scuttle to its rightful location. For those of
you who follow the SLATER saga faithfully, you have read that Doug removed
this hatch for a rebuild back in April. The scope of the job continued to
expand to the point where we didn't think it would ever get back to the
fantail. It became as source of a lot of jokes and derisive comments. Doug
said the more we laughed, the longer it would take. Well it's back, but fear
not. It's not done.

We were standing around admiring it, when Doug came up and said he
had to tweak it a little bit more. By the time he'd finished explaining what
he meant by tweaking, we realized he'd be on the fantail until January. At
least the canvas cover is gone off the fantail. And having her hatch back in
the museum space has made Pat Perrella real happy!

Doug has now teamed up with Barry Witte and Mike Clark and they have
tackled the miserable job of getting the shaft alleys and water tanks below
C-202L bone dry. They are circulating air through all the tanks to
arrest the corrosion. Doug is used to this kind of work, but with regards
to Barry, all the old Navy hands seem to enjoy watching a three-strip ring
knocker mucking around in tanks. For Barry's part it's always been whatever
it takes to care for this ship.

Finally, months of effort paid off when we received a load of material
from Camden, New Jersey. George Amandola spent a month collecting
parts from a scrapper in Camden. Volunteer Chuck Longshore works for
a trucking company, and his boss let him swing down to Camden after a deliver
in Manhattan. Now we have some "like new" watertight doors and
ladders to replace the wasted ones aboard SLATER.

Leading Radioman Jerry Jones takes a lot of harassment from the crew, but
he may have his revenge. This month he and his crew got the radar set
that Lou Rena donated to us operating. Not content to have a computerized
system of ship's bells ringing over the 1MC every thirty minutes, he took the
sound effects one step further. He has teamed up with Bosun's Mate Mike
Muzio to improve the sound effects. Together they make the oddest team
since Laurel and Hardy. Jerry, the jovial, affable, intellectual,
perfectionist techno nerd. And Mike.Mike. Well, let's just
say that if you wanted to preserve one perfect example of an Old Navy,
Asiatic fleet, tin can Bosun's mate, you would preserve Mike. You have
to be a fleet sailor who served between 1900 and 1970 to understand that.
They just don't make 'em like that anymore. Anyway, Jerry, Mike and
Mike's bosun's pipe spent about an hour together in the CPO mess as
Jerry recorded Mike doing all the traditional 1MC calls and announcements.
Now Jerry's computer program and SLATER comes alive with all the
sounds of a WWII DE in commission. In other words, we have to listen to
Mike's raspy bosun's mate voice every fifteen minutes for eternity.
I believe it will only be a matter of time before the stern lookout will be
calling the bridge, "Computer overboard! But don't bother doing a
willie! It went straight to the bottom!" At the end of each tour,
the guides will be able to tell visitors what a blessing it was when Admiral
Zumwalt did away with the excessive use of the Boatswain's pipe in 1970.